March 4, 2015

Portrait Photography – AMERICAN HORROR STORY/TIM BURTON INSPIRED – Shooting Day for Night with Actress Kaitlin Cornuelle

PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPHY – AMERICAN HORROR STORY/TIM BURTON
INSPIRED SHOOT

I love television shows and films that are very stylistic. That is why I am a big fan of movies/tv
shows such as “The Nightmare Before Christmas” and “American Horror Story.”
I love how they light and how every character has a specific dark quality in the way they are captured.

I wanted to give it a shot. Thanks for inspiration AHS and Mr. Burton!

I had the pleasure of shooting, Miss Kaitlin Cornuelle. I wanted to try some portrait
photography where I would shoot what they call, “Day for Night” with a bluish undertone. It’s
obviously not the complete dark/night effect but I wanted to lighten it up just a bit.
Next time, I’ll try to go for the full effect.

For those of you non-photo/filmmaker people, who don’t know what Day for Night is: Day
for Night means when you are trying to achieve the evening look with broad day light shining
down on you.

Then the magic happens in the editing room for film and for photographers like myself, with the
magic of programs such as Adobe Photoshop. If I showed what this original photo looked
like, it would be shocking the difference. I wanted to create almost a eerie feeling and to
achieve the semi “Day for Night” look.

Camera: Canon 5D Mark 3
Lens: Canon 24-70mm L Series

My Lightning Technique: As I have mentioned from my previous posts, I love using natural
lightning to use as a key source or a filler. This time, it was really cloudy and I didn’t have that
option, which may have been to my advantage. I used a strobe with a octagon soft box to the
very left of her face to create shadows, which gives more of a dramatic effect.

Wardrobe: Kaitlin brought her own vintage looking dress and I added the vintage hat that I
bought from Los Feliz a couple months ago (perfect! I knew I’d find use for it). We curled her
hair for more of a classic look.

I loved working with Kaitlin. Her look is perfect for this and we had a blast just coming up
with how to achieve this concept on the fly. I am looking forward to collaborating with her some more.

Here’s what we came up with 🙂